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Welkere
Welkere '''is one of the most intelligent characters in existence, and a long-time antagonist. He is originally from Sepmornia. He is the mastermind behind the evolution of Five Sages of Animor, and the most powerful user of Animor in existence. In most recent crises, he has considerably changed. Like Rah Jemor, his allegiance is now to Might of Tranquility. Mortal life Born in year 980, Welkere was a boy, who grew up to be ambitious and seize opportunities in life. His father was "a lowly construction worker", as Welkere used to refer to him. His mother, however, was a researcher whose idealistic statements reformed young Welkere's ambitions. Welkere went to an academy at the age of 17, where he became obsessed with knowledge. His mind desired more and more understanding of any subject that he came across. He was a friendly young man, who realized the importance of ever widening social circles. Fatally, he soon became sceptical and cynical of whether normal people could adjust to his way and be able to further his evolution as a man of wisdom. His morality took a great fall as he slowly became antisocial, spending almost all of his time crafting new spells and seals, gaining control of energies and understanding the nature of the vast Animor and Sepmornia. He became revered among his fellow academics, earning him a nomination to professorship. Welkere then snapped back into reality due to being bestowed with such an honor. Welkere understood that the wisest men in Sepmornia would talk to him now that he was a '''20-year old professor. Welkere began to harvest pieces of wisdom from numerous encounters, which he set up with anyone who he believed to understand the nature of the world better than he did. There indeed was no substitute for experience, and Welkere became to practice ever more complex arts with the ever-increasing knowledge he gained. Finally, a student spotted Welkere in the academy at night. The student became horrified as he saw Welkere accessing powers that sent such strong energy that they immobilized the viewer. Some of the techniques Welkere was using were even forbidden or untaught. Welkere noticed the student and offered him a chance to study the same arts as he did, for a price. The student wasn't happy with professor's demonstration and told him to stop. Welkere promised him not to. The next day, however, a single arrow from nowhere sniped a member of academy - the very young man who had observed Welkere's doings. Welkere himself did not understand how he could have done it. He later understood it was the work of a demon possessing him. He then accessed all his power and sealed up the demon within him, extracted him to the open, and used the captured unnamed demon to find out in detail how demons acted. At last, a group of inquisitors came to Welkere in order to arrest him as an assassination suspect. Welkere was certain he couldn't be traced, so he agreed to be led to the Sep Palace to be questioned. Welkere kept his mind calm and to his surprise, the King of Animor came personally in order to free him of the charges. The rather young king, Escad, was delighted to meet a genius who had risen to professor so fast. Welkere expressed extreme gratitude to the King and kept him happy with discussion over all kinds of topics for a whole day. Escad then gave him an extreme task: finding out the true killer of the student, who had actually been the only heir to a rich family. Welkere, sure of his invincibility, promised it in exchange for access the royal library. The King took note of the request and gave him access to all of Sep Palace. With his new access to information, Welkere started to find out that the world was originally something entirely different than it was then. A large continent beyond the size of Sepmornia had existed, but where and how? The world couldn't contain such a vast place! Now he knew what to search for in order to find the true nature of the world. Having prepared for it, Welkere entered the castle late at night only to be stopped by the guards, who wondered what couldn't wait until morning. Welkere activated a forbidden technique, Wave of Pain, freezing the guards into place, slowly causing them to die. Outstandingly, Welkere went into stealthed state and set up a castle-wide rune circle with a motive for sacrifice. Ascent to immortal life Welkere completed the circle to his final technique: Impure Salvation of the Soul. Welkere's technique called upon demonic energy and succeeded in breaking dimensional barriers and flooding Capital of Sepmornia with lesser demons. As a result, the castle was split in two and the capital was rumbled by earthquakes. Welkere's technique was not yet finished; he then gave up all that he had in order to destroy all demons summoned in order to produce enough energy to form a seal upon himself. The seal that manifested upon Welkere plagued his hand, but freed his spirit. Welkere was astounded by a high unlike anything he had seen before. He was now immortal. Painlessly, he appeared to the people and the royal guard, saying that demons had attacked. Welkere showed the leader of the guard, Beldegard, his hand, which he told them to be a curse he got from destroying all the spawned demons. His cover-up story was that his spirit detectors had gone crazy and pointed to the castle. Beldegard took a leading role in the rebuilding process, declared himself a temporary leader while the castle was in ruin, and befriended Welkere. Welkere became an exalted person in Sepmornia for a little bit of time, but he understood that his new immortal form would have trouble in the society. His goals had to be higher in order to achieve even more power - an eternity was awaiting him. Welkere began to set up a final deception, and used his hand to summon a demon to himself. The demon was known as Shaddigrath. Shaddigrath was a clever entity, and what he lacked in sheer power was compensated by his absolute speed. Welkere wished to leave Sepmornia, and Shaddigrath answered that he couldn't trust Welkere, whose hand reeked of a demonic curse and slaughter of his kin. Welkere told the demon he would gladly give him anything he wanted, and the demon said that his family, the Shade Demons, were gathering more power in order to manipulate the men in other universes. Welkere was shocked that the world wasn't limited to just Sepmornia and its surroundings, but he agreed to help with any task for one more bit of aid. Welkere met up with Beldegard in order to celebrate one year of rebuilding. As they, the two heroes, were prepared to give a speech to the people, Shaddigrath attacked from nowhere and seemingly killed both of them with a black energy blast. Welkere, however, had been demonically granted such stamina that the equally powerful blow had no real effect on him, though it killed the leader of the people. In the midst of the assassination, Welkere appeared to fall into a crack in the ground and die. In reality, the whole area was rigged to safely teleport him outside the city. As agreed, Shaddigrath didn't commence any action against the common folk. Shaddigrath then set up a strong teleportation technique for them to reach Nether. Welkere was protected from a certain death by his new hand but noticed a strange optical illusion in work in the middle of Nether. As he did, he suddenly assaulted his ally with a seal - Seal of Demon Dismissal. It invoked a strong anti-demon energy, sending the target through a forced Homecoming (back into Smoking Nest). Paradise Welkere had truly grown into a powerful man. His combat experience was little, but he wasn't afraid of anything. He calmly went into the center of Nether, to the optical illusion he had witnessed, and began to dispel some of it to go through. Inside was a well-kept gate, adorned with runes that Welkere analyzed to have an affiliation with Light. Knowing it couldn't be a demon base, he knocked on it. The lord of the realm called Paradise woke up in the middle of his rest. He opened up the North Gate and found Welkere, the traveler from Animor. Welkere was a little dumbfounded to find a man with absolute power hidden in a place like that, but his curiosity took over. He assured the man that he had merely come searching for answers of the world's origin - it was a simple truth. The lord asked for him to go rest, and the next morning he was woken up by the lord himself, who identified himself as Paradismus. They would talk about Paradise for quite some time before Welkere was courageous enough to ask to stay. Paradismus agreed to do it as long as he would serve like any other resident. Confused about the residents, Welkere asked who lived there besides him, and he answered: "Ancient creatures with a link to the purity of the first". Paradismus seemingly chose to withhold details, but Welkere wasn't worried - he believed he would find out enough by himself. The next fifty years Welkere lived without worries, coming to understand that all beings within the area called Paradise were immortal. The spirits were drawn to him, and Welkere was finally appointed to the rank of Lord of Paradise by Paradismus. He wondered what reason there could be, but Paradismus told him that "Songav, the entity who gave me the duty, wanted me to pass it on." Welkere researched and wrote books without any rush. It would take about two hundred more years until in 1176 that a visitor came to the place. It was a demon, however its malicious energies were completely sealed. Welkere thought that the stranger was incredibly weird, but he chose not to attack him on sight, as the standard procedure would be. The demon introduced himself as a "member of nearly dead family of demons", offering his help to Welkere. He could tell the demon was incredibly wise, and demanded details. The visitor told him that he'd be back, because "he wasn't obviously the one he had been searching for". With that statement, the demon was gone and out of the lord's attack range. Welkere's attempt to find out about the demon was fruitless. No such thing existed according to his data. He finally lost his patience in 1181 and left Paradise, leaving behind a letter for Paradismus. He traveled to the Smoking Nest, the base of Shade Demons at the edge of Nether, and asked to see Shaddigrath. The demons swarmed him with an attack he didn't know to expect and dragged him into their lair. While he was thinking he was considered a betrayer by the demons, he realized he was wrong once he came face-to-face with their leader, a demon broodmother called Mishira. However, Mishira offered her family off him. Welkere understood the importance of relations with this being and humbly asked what had made them bring him here. Mishira answered him: "We mistook you for him. A man, who was not a man, is training more and more men to fight. They fight demons - they began small, but the man is strong. The man wants all those who descend from demons to go. They burn all demons touch - they are the undoing of my brood, who are weak. We chose this place, far away from them, as our base, so we would live on. Some abandoned me." Then she pointed her hand to Welkere, adding: "And he bears your hand. The Hand of No Salvation. The mark of the brood of demons. The traitor." Welkere understood the significance of this individual, so he wanted to know where to find the leader of these demon hunters. Mishira told him that she would only answer the question if Welkere proved himself. Welkere agreed. What shade demons wanted was a system of portals connected to Paradise. This would ensure that if anything went wrong, the brood would come and destroy his precious Paradise. Welkere, for some reason (actually, the effect of Hand of No Salvation), accepted despite potentially horrendous circumstances. The portals were to be built with demonic energy. Welkere gained a group of assistants from the Smoking Nest to construct it and they finished it in two weeks. Paradismus didn't object to it as Welkere explained to him about his theory of salvation - how they could save banished people from certain death by bringing them to Paradise. To do that, the gate system was absolutely necessary. Of course, he never allowed the former lord to see the workers. Encounter with demon hunters With the task finished, Mishira asked for him and infused the Hand of No Salvation on Welkere with her energy. As requested, Welkere obtained a clue and rushed to meet the man. He found him, surrounded by a large group of all kinds of people in a realm without security. It was rather like a camp. He hesitated for a second and gave up on assassination, as the man was probably a professional. He glared once at Welkere and grinned. "Give up on killing me. You don't win. We don't just turn evil by talking to demons." Welkere wanted his name, and the demon hunter dashed, almost killing Welkere with a swift slash. "My name is Bark Dabus. I am an expert at defense - concern yourselves with the fact you triggered dozens of traps by merely entering. You live because you're not a demon," he said. Welkere took a battle stance. Then it occurred to him that Dabus, no matter how powerful, was not wielding a Hand of No Salvation. "Why do you not have the hand?" he asked. Dabus sighed and loosened up. "I don't. I am a defender, I don't get cursed." "Then who has it?" "We deceive demons, my traveling friend. Your energies tell me that you too serve Songav the sun bringer. So know this - Hand of No Salvation reeks of something as primal as Songav, but demonic. I am not certain if I can trust you." Welkere summoned a sphere of energy and recreated an eeriely realistic vision of his past. He purposefully only showed the part where he sacrificed the demons in order to gain power, and how that power manifested in his arm. Dabus related to his pain, thinking it was an attack of the shade demons. "So do you have the hand or not?" "I don't. I'm incapable of lying." "Then you truly created a diversion - the leader's not the one carrying the crown, it's your second-in-command." Dabus nodded. "Indeed. His name is Myolgis - half-man and an abandoned misfit who could have become a villain." There was a slight pause. "Half man half what, and how did he gain the hand?" "Half dwarven. Half Mystic. His chakra system was dark and built up negative flow. It would have killed any normal man, but he was normal, except that he was born with a bloodlust. He injured people. He was driven to madness with guilt and hate. He was forbidden from human rights. I paid everyone off him, I made him my apprentice." Welkere finally understood. By repeatedly bringing an entity like that on the battlefield, the demons would cease to attack. If they did, they would probably attack the defenseless realm - yet it was more like a trap-filled pit. Welkere understood the meaning of the strategy, but he had a task of his own. He cast a seal on the exact centerpoint of the realm, glaring one last time at Bark Dabus in that millennium. "Symmetry of the road to Paradise is questionable. I'll be waiting," he added, attempting to leave a clue to the immortal about his whereabouts. Subsequently, Dabus had his realm experiencing a storm like never before, and Welkere vanished in a flash of lightning. Right after his escape, Dabus's realm burst into flames. Welkere returned to Mishira. Mishira wanted an update on the master of the demon hunters, and Welkere told her a story of a traitor; he told that Myolgis was the leader of the group because he betrayed the calmer leader, Bark Dabus, and that Welkere himself ensured that Bark Dabus would rise to power. He also staged "a demonstration of power" to show that Myolgis was up against something bigger. Mishira was not happy, but Welkere assured her that she wouldn't survive an all-out war. After all, "the shade demons are deceivers and tricksters", he said. "Your time will eventually come. Keep them strong." He had the question lingering in his mind, and asked the broodmother about the strange visitor in Paradise. "Yes... There was a strange breed of demons. They succumbed to astral energies. They were pacified. Much like us. They search for things, believing they have the future in their hands. Their broodmother is Xara, later known as Memoxara, the leader of Memory Demons." However, Mishira couldn't give much more details regarding where they came from or what their true goal was. Welkere knew Dabus would try to find him, so he asked Mishira if everything had gone well. She said that it was alright. Welkere assured that they could come and ask for his aid in a time of need now that they had the gate system, and they parted. Despite the honest offer, Welkere was unaware of Songav lying in wait in Crystal Meadow just outside the area he knew as Paradise, and that no demon would be able to enter through the gate system due to the powers of Light. He went back to Paradise and wrote down everything he knew concerning the demons while having Paradismus configure the gate system in order to reach the farthest reaches of the Universes. It turned out in 1186, after over four years of tweaking, that there was something beyond their scope in both Nether and the Third Universe. Both had seeming limits, but by doing close inspection, spirits were detectable on their other side. Welkere knew instinctively that Paradismus would never allow him to expose their existence by breaking those barriers, so they agreed to leave them untouched. However, they were glad with most of the portals working. Trance, death and legacy Welkere realized that the powers lurking in the shadows were far too powerful for Paradise and its residents to take on. Regardless, the defenses of the realm were strong and almost impenetrable, though the portals might pose a slight risk. Welkere's next plan was to seal himself into a spirit-like state, a trance of sorts. As a spirit, he could enter the sealed areas in both Nether and the Third Universe and look for clues on his quest for knowledge. He gave Paradismus instructions regarding his attempt, who vowed two things: Welkere would not be awakened AND in the case of the lord passing away, he would bury Welkere in the royal graves of Sepmornia, where he would be untouched. Welkere didn't disclose details on what he planned to do. Welkere sealed his fate with the technique and went to Nether's bottom, where he witnessed the eternal prison of two gigantic demons. He was almost destroyed by the sheer corruptive energy they still emitted. Next to them was a strange lady with an aura so strong in Light, that Welkere realized it was her keeping the demons at bay. Welkere slipped out of the prison area and went to the Third Universe. In the absolute north edge of that Universe, he found a wall much solider than that in Nether, leading him to realize that these weren't closely related. After weeks of observation, he spotted a single dwarven warrior coming from a well-hidden door in the wall, and slipped in. The area was reeking of dark energies, and consisted of dozens of mines and factories. There were only greyish and black realms floating in there and he could feel a master of Chaos controlling it all. Welkere kept himself sane with all the willpower he could muster and kept observing and traveling through the newfound plane. There were no other races than dwarves working, though some select beings from all over the Universes acted as officers. After a few months, Welkere had realized it was not likely he could return alive. The toxic of spirits, Chaos, was wearing him down. As his last task, he entered the fortress of an entity no one dared to talk about - Primal Darkness was the only name for that thing. He saw an armored, battle-hardened goliath with jet-black skin giving orders, and saw everyone working in the factory working for one cause only: harvesting a mineral called Dreadamantite. The entity wore a heavy armor made of it, making the Chaos unbearable for Welkere's spirit-like form. As it began to steadily slow him down, a strange phenomenon occurred: the energies of Paradise deep within him started to emit light. The dwarves fled around him, scared of the heinous seemingly divine character blinding their eyes. Welkere gazed upon the goliath, who grinned. "AND YOU ARE?" it asked in a voice of authority. "I am Welkere, the lord of Songav's people." The goliath laughed. "I am Vagnos the absolute, the Primal Darkness, and the sworn nemesis of Songav: the Shadow of Songav, if you prefer." Welkere froze in fear. The enemy would clearly dispatch him at even the slightest sign of danger after he had foolishly declared a hostile alignment. "Your being is weak - perhaps you have a death wish or an offer, Welkere," it added. "I acted on my own behalf - I seek to understand the world better," Welkere stated, and Vagnos merely laughed. "I thought it was stupid. Far beyond stupid, really, for one like you to come here. Perhaps you're truthful." Vagnos then told him about the origin of the world. There actually existed 17 Primal Entities - 15 lesser and two greater. Welkere looked at him and added: "Impossible. There is one like you - one like Songav and yourself, a grandfather figure of all demons - that is the final Primal Entity, the one who completes your trio." This was his final conclusion that he managed to make with all the knowledge gathered thus far - it had to be the secret of the world's creators. Surprised by the knowledge of a fact that Vagnos thought impossible for any simple non-Primal entity to know, the goliath's fist crushed the shining figure of the lord into bits. The stardust, shining brightly, escaped the fortress in a flash - a Homecoming was initiated, and Welkere's shattered soul ultimately wanted to its birthplace. It became clumped, until it exploded into five pieces during the teleportation. The life of Welkere had not ended yet. Paradismus felt a disruption of the soul of his friend and began a ritual at Paradise. This event was so unpredictable, with a lord of Paradise going to meet Vagnos and having his soul shatter, that Songav secretly urged the Ancients staying at Paradise to do everything in their power to aid Welkere. Following that order, they restored Welkere's consciousness into his soulless body. Without ever opening his eyes, Welkere's mind immediately felt the location of his soul, and he realized he had gained a new ability: Soul Voice. However, he knew his body was useless as it was, and he created a plan to return stronger than before. Welkere's corruption had begun with a newly building hatred inside him. He had realized that Primal Entities ultimately used people as their puppets, never caring. He wanted to bring hope upon the worlds, and to fight the Primal Entities, he would first need to die for real. He mustered energy from all around him despite his useless body, and sent it in five flashes towards the pieces of his soul. With that, his body had sacrificed all it could, and he died. Paradismus followed the instructions and buried him next to the late Kings of Animor. The legacy he planned was only to come much later. The energy sent over to his soul traveled at a really slow pace, and it took over 800 years until they reached their targets. The flashes reinforced the parts of his soul, that still remained on the heights of the Second Universe, and finally crushed down on the soil of Sepmornia as meteorites. The year was 1987. Five people came to the pieces and the rest was history - those five, who touched them, became Five Sages of Animor, wielding powers that Welkere wanted them to have in order to one day stand against the likes of Vagnos and Songav. They also caused the tradition of kingdom to be abandoned on Sepmornia. Utopia timeline Prior to Utopia XIII, Rah Jemor needed the strongest (yet loyal) entities to become his Planar Overlords. He had some intel passed down by demons as well as some from books indicating that Welkere might be an excellent warrior to join the cause. He was resurrected, and Welkere smiled as he saw Rah Jemor, his words being "Yes, master?" His motives were ultimately in having all Primal Entities destroyed, but what he had to do was sacrifice some of his principles in order to be able to backstab Rah Jemor. He kept his thoughts to himself and served as asked. Welkere gained lordship over The Second Universe, a gesture that made Welkere eventually believe that this entity might not be as bad as he could be, considering he was the lord of all demons. He didn't see much of the demon and they only kept news going with messengers. There was a man that he was told much about, and who supposedly had to be considered a highly dangerous adversary - Micoda. The news reached him that First Universe was lost. Welkere was not surprised, considering the abomination that Rah Jemor had created to serve there. A group of fighters eventually reached his base, the Temple of Sepmornia. Welkere agreed to duel Negulo out of curiosity because of his seemingly great intellect and a hidden relation to a man that Rah Jemor had exalted: Xeon. After he overwhelmed Negulo, he let his guard down, only to be sundered into pieces by Negulo's deadliest technique - Spider's Last Move. He managed to send a spirit message to Rah Jemor, alerting him that "they are coming." (Utopia XIII) His body was left to rot away, but some scholars from the city preserved it and stored it back into his previous tomb. A few years later he would rise again. Following the conflict at Time's End, the battle between the followers of Songav and freedom-yearning New Dawn Order ended in the resistance's victory. As the revolution was underway, Micoda cornered Songav on Capital of Sepmornia, and accessed Adocimicoda's level to sacrifice himself and seal the shining elemental away. The resulting energy was so absolute, and full of the Light that he had served that Welkere felt it from the spirit world and drew it to himself. Thus, his form manifested, gasped for air and asked "Am I really on this world?" (Utopia XV) The new world was not particularly to Welkere's liking. Vagnos steadily gained power in the absence of his adversary. The master of Chaos could subdue Rah Jemor, who was imprisoned in Netherfury Hold, the seat of power. He was shackled in a cell for Vagnos to access the raw Might of War through the constant flow supplied by Hands of No Salvation. This entwined energy, with Darkness (and Chaos) being naturally superior to War, yielded him a dark army known as Netherfury, which he used to rule the world. Although Welkere could stay hidden, he found the world at war soon again. Micoda was apparently still alive and had just recovered from the attack that he used to take down Songav. A few fighters of resistance, Rolfen among them, had already been captured, and Welkere preferred to let Micoda and the Netherfury fight it out by themselves. (Utopia XVI) After the battle of Netherfury Hold, Welkere disregarded the overall state of the world, seeing only an endless and useless loop of war. His passion for science had been rekindled by seeing Micoda fight on the battlefield with the powers of Soul, which was something he had to be able to explain through rational means. To that end, he found Ghejyen the elf. The elf was now a vagabond of the universe, much like himself. The sheer existence of the elf's absurdly effective imitation properties was astounding. Ghejyen understood that they were alike, but it took Welkere a battle to convince that he was not merely a husk risen from the grave; he was a master of many arts. Ghejyen agreed to study the powers of the Soul with him. Scientist of souls Some time later, lost in their research, Welkere became alerted only as world's power shifted to a completely new alignment. It seemed like an "opposite of war". Regardless, he chose to pursue the science's absolute knowledge over tactical information. After numerous experiments, Ghejyen fought Welkere as a copy of him, and finally bested him by drawing her bloodlust out and striking mercilessly. Welkere detected a change in her. To ascertain his findings, he activated his Binding Eyes of Truth with a seal of blood, suspending the elf in mid-air. As she realized that she would soon die, a latent power in her was activated. Her soul, remaining an exact copy of the sage's, activated a mysterious form, one that Welkere later dubbed Phase Two. At the same time, though, Welkere did. Welkere disrupted the binding technique that she broke through and said: "Oh yes. Now I am a sage among sages." The two of them dueled each other every now and then while seeking for members to spy for them. They needed information on their mysterious enemies, the Moon's Angels, though they knew that directly attacking them was not an option. One day he detected a powerful anomaly. It was the person of most interest to Welkere: Micoda, a master of Soul like himself. He detected the hero accessing the posthuman power of Phase Two much like he had. The only difference was that Welkere had already come close to cracking Phase Three's secrets, and was a leader in power. (Utopia XVII) Category:Characters